A limited-run (200 copies) of the hard copy Atlas was produced by the Department of Conservation (DOC) in April 2009 and distributed to stakeholders.
Members of the public are able to view the hard copy Atlas at most libraries. Depending on the demand for the hard copy Atlas by members of the public, an additional production run may be considered.
An important baseline for this work was provided by Pickard & Towns' (1988) Atlas of the amphibians and reptiles of New Zealand, Conservation Sciences Publication number 1. This edition was published by Science and Research Directorate, Department of Conservation.
The production of a hard copy was motivated by the realisation that the last 20 years have seen at least 40 new taxa proposed (R. Hitchmough and D. Chapple, pers. comm.) and that thousands of new distribution records have been collected and incorporated in the department’s herpetofauna database.